The ignorance of this post is truly astounding. The alert originated in Britain, not the U.S. Scotland Yard has arrested 20-some suspects in a plot they've been tracking for months. (Yeah, I know Scotland Yard breathlessly followed the Joe Lieberman thing and just waited until two days later to make the arrests for maximum impact on U.S. politics.) That's how stupid your reasoning is.

Yeesh, read a newspaper or something!

Read a newspaper? Have you already forgotten (and let me quote here):

"Yo Blair!"

That was in the newspaper just a two weeks or so ago. You must be a product of the great "no child left behind" educational system with your level of reading comprehension.

Whose bitch do you think Blair is anyhow? "Please, please Mr. President, let me go soften the ground for Condi." :D Remember that?

Learning to read is more than the ability to assemble letters into words. You can actually attain a level of comprehension when you put things into context.

I must be getting into senility. I read the referenced article and it seems to me to indicate that these rules apply in the US.

"...Shortly after British authorities announced the arrests of 21 people who allegedly were plotting to blow up jets flying from the United Kingdom to the United States, security officials here tightened searches of carry-on luggage and banned cosmetic lotions, beverages and other non-essential liquids from being brought on board..."

Plus, the article specifically describes police officials, "carrying plastic handcuffs and automatic weapons."

And we've got a US citizen, an employee of United Airlines, telling passengers they can't board with prohibited liquids in their carryon baggage.

I think what happened (or didn't happen - you know how these things go) in the UK has caused the alert in the US. The fact that this happened right after Sen Joe SORELOSERman got the thumbs down from voters may be coincidence, or it may be serendipity.

Good post, Jo, as always. One point. Please spell "incompetence" correctly, since it is now a registered service mark of the Republican Party.

Maybe Chewalla should read the newspaper for news, rather than the Freepers (?)

Are you people really that stupid and paranoid!? Are you incapable of doing a simple Google search?

I linked to several British web sites that list even stricter regulations than at U.S. airports, but your stupid software apparently doesn't accept links because it rejected them as spam. Just do your own search of the Times of London site, the Daily Mail site, the British Airways site, among others.

Do you realize just how utterly stupid and gullible you all look!? It's because of paranoid idiots like you, Cindy Sheehan, Michael Moore and Ned Lamont that the Dems are going to lose in November. And that's not jsut me talking: Time magazine says so, as does today's Slate.com.

Well, if Time and Slate say so...why even bother? [;)

And speaking of paranoid...remember those TV commercials with the WOLVES lurking? BE AFRAID!!!!!
Remember the warnings of a smoking gun in the form of a mushroom cloud? BE AFRAID!!!!
Remember "Them weapons of mass destruction gotta be somewhere!"? BE AFRAID (of a piss-poor comedian moonlighting as a President...making jokes about sending men and women to their death...F**KING PITIFUL)
Buy your duct tape and plastic sheeting now!
"Muslims are out to get us because of our freedom!" "Sadaam too!" "We invented TERROR ALERTS so you don't have to be paranoid!"
This administration is ALL ABOUT PARANOIA!
You want a conspiracy theory, Chewy?
Hmmm, let's see...BushCo normally uses terror alerts as a distraction. Cheney gives Blair some advice on damage control (because we all know he's running the show anyway). Bush and Cheney are Big Oil guys, and Blair, well...he's British.
Why would they collaborate on a distraction?
Hmmm...the British need a distraction...the Big Oil guys need a distraction...hmmmm....
British...petroleum....
British...petroleum....
Hmmm.....
I can' think of anything.
Time and Slate must be dead on right...DAMN THEM!!!

If they changed it to a "Blue Alert"...would that convince you?

[:)

So, Saddam DID have WMD... they were hidden in the Coke machines all the time :0) OK, Chewy, I guess your degree is in chemistry. So, just how does one make a bomb out of coffee or soft drinks? Can it be done with the ingredients listed? If so, then why haven't we been checking for them all along? Hopefully the airlines have stopped selling them, otherwise the terrorists will need only order their bombs straight from the stewardess. Surely they wouldn't think to make a profit on all these dangerous chemicals. I know I should take this a little more seriously, but it's all in the timing... does anyone benefit from this hysteria? Yes, I know it was the British and not our guys but, sorry, let’s see the evidence for this. “Oh, sorry folks, can’t show you anything. It’s a secret matter of NATIONAL SECURITY, just trust us folks.” No, not until they earn my trust!!! And that crap about paranoia? Well, there is every good reason to suspect that your guys have lied and are using illegal methods to further their own causes. They lie to the American people, they have been caught lying time and time again... about searches, about torture, about monitoring our communications, about outing a CIA agent, about GWB's Vietnam-era service record, about Saddam and 9/11, about WMD (do your own Goggle search and you'll find our own Pentagon and weapons experts stating that the few chemical munitions found were way past their shelf life, but as a chemist you probably already know that), and on and on. It is good to know that Bush is taking airport security a hell of a lot more seriously than he did in the late summer of '01!!! And just where is Osama???? And Karl Rove do some cheap trick to win an election... perish the thought. We’ll have to see what comes in November… I hope the American people are smarter than Chewy.

Um they've known about the possibility of this type of terrorist atack since 1994 - and NOW it's a big deal?

Please. They could've implemented these restrictions ages ago if they were serious about it.

We haven't had any kind of security alert since before the last election, and NOW it's a big deal suddenly?

Even if the threat is real, look how much damage the terrorists did by just the THREAT of a plot - they don't even have to do a thing, and we all go nuts. How stupid is this, really?

They've effectively disrupted air travel and caused huge delays, costing who knows how much, without even raising a weapon!

It doesn't get much better than that for the "terrorists", does it?

Chewalla - The UK airports have stricter regulations than in the US.

And your point is?

Is it that your google has more hair on its chest than ours? Does your google's muscles flex dynamically in the sun?

It sounds to me like you're the paranoid.

I'd be happy to discuss the matter with you, but I think you've been inhaling too much nitrogen.

Actually, Lurch, I suspect Chewy of inhaling too much nitrous oxide, along with the other cheetos that the 101st Fightin' Keyboarders imbibe . . . binary explosives have been around since at least WWII; the SOE and OSS made use of them.

I think, smaug, that the discovery and use of binary explosives predates WWII. However, I haven't seen in the lapdog press that is very busy printing out the Rove blastfaxes to indicate binaries were planned here. They're actually rather complicated to assemble. Proportionality is critical.

Have yous een any indications that they planned to use binaries?

As for the nitrogen comment you will find an explanation here:
http://www.mainandcentral.org/cgi-bin/mt/mt.cgi?__mode=view&_type=entry&id=253&blog_id=1

and here:
http://www.mainandcentral.org/cgi-bin/mt/mt.cgi?__mode=view&_type=entry&id=487&blog_id=1

One wonders why Bush & crew waited to drop the info bomb? Could it be they needed to dump some airline shares like they did before 911?

Don't know if anyone is reading htis thread still, but figured this link should be thrown in just because...

http://msnbc.msn.com/id/14320452/

.... and the headline?

Source: U.S., U.K. at odds over timing of arrests
British wanted to continue surveillance on terror suspects, official says

1. Veddy Interesting...
   
2. Gingrich: All War, All the Time
   
3. Borrow and Spend republicans...there you go again
   
4. Almost forgot
   
5. The Great Exploding Hair Gel Alert
   
6. Ned! (or Joe No Mo)
   
7. Holy Joe's DoS attack?
   
8. Yes, he's really that stupid
   
9. We're not children
   
10. w00t!